


The Summer Side

by Hana_Noiazei



Series: The Forgotten Four [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst, DenNor, Fairy AU, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, faetalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21954436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hana_Noiazei/pseuds/Hana_Noiazei
Summary: Magical or mundane, nobody is immune to the agonising curse of loneliness. This is the story of two lovers, lost and alone in their own worlds, who found each other through nothing but fate.
Relationships: Denmark/Norway, Denmark/Norway (Hetalia)
Series: The Forgotten Four [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592965
Kudos: 14





	The Summer Side

The bowl is light.

Tossing it on his dining table, Njord slumps down on his chair with a sigh. The rigid wood does little to soothe his cramps, attained from a full day of rewardless performing. He remembers all the times he’d return home with a bowl full of coins, treated to drinks and meals and loved by all.

When was the last time he earned such a bounty?

Winter is here, and snow blankets the ground. People hide inside their houses with bolted doors and gather around the fire with toasted bread and mulled wine for their December celebration. They scurry around the village, slipping on ice and sparing none of their earnings for the young man dancing on the streets.

Across the table is Njord’s most prized possession, the fiddle he has been playing since childhood. The wood is chipped and the bow is frayed, but still he picks it up and runs his fingers over the bridge, thinking about when these blistered fingers and aching arms were worth it.

He’s hungry.

As usual, there is nothing in his cupboards, not even a crust of bread. Njord gets up from his chair, stumbling and suppressing frustrated tears as he leaves his house and makes his way towards the woods.

The snow crunches with every step Njord takes, frigid water seeping into the worn leather of his boots. He shivers and jumps to pluck tiny vermillion berries from a rowan tree with numb fingers. Carefully he clambers up a blackthorn tree to pluck their midnight-blue sloes, storing them in his pocket next to the rowan berries. He shivers again.

He looks into the forest, beyond the berry trees he is used to picking from, beyond cobweb-strung trees and frost-covered leaves, beyond ice-slick stones and snow-covered blewit mushrooms. Njord finds the small, round mushrooms forming a perfect ring, absolutely nothing inside the circle. He dares not near it, for nobody knows what happens to people who fall into fairy rings. Njord turns away and tries to forget it.

He doesn’t go farther than the juniper tree, pulling every berry he can see before trudging back home. The sun is setting but the village is still very much alive — laughter flows from the local pub, childish screams from one cottage, mindless chatter and the clinking of plates from another.

Njord’s house only has creaks as he pushes the door open and walks across the loose boards. 

The harsh winter gale roaring in from his open window, Njord devours the berries like an eagle would its prey. He almost laughs at himself, at his pitiful state; once a beautiful dancer, now a dying boy surviving on berries. Then he sneezes, rubbing his arms and his threadbare sleeves.

There are no ageing parents to tend to, nor pestering siblings or children that he can tell stories to. He has no lover to hold or to kiss by a fireplace. There is only him, alone and far, far away from a family he ran away from in hopes of a better future, slowly starving to death.

Heading for his bedroom, Njord slumps down heavily on his thin, lumpy mattress and curls up, stomach growling and breath misting in the air. Outside, the wind howls. 

The cheery noises from outside slowly die down, and a few returning partygoers tromp past Njord’s house. Their thundering steps feel like punches to the stomach to him, and he covers his ears in an attempt to block them out. The tipsy singing of a young man, one perhaps his age, fills his ears, and he sighs. A young woman, presumably his lover, joining in and laughing drunkenly is only salt on the wound.

Tears, boiling and resentful, rolls down Njord’s cheeks as the group finally walks away and their conversation fades out of earshot. In a sudden burst of malcontent, he hits his mattress. 

The wintry wind chills the tears tracing his face, stinging his eyes and sending a flurry of snow swirling in from the window. He wipes his face clean with the scratchy burlap sleeve of his shirt and wraps his arms tighter around himself. Njord remembers himself two years ago, a stubborn sixteen-year-old running from his parents and his baby brother with nothing but his best clothes and his fiddle, determined to make a new life.

And now, two years later, it’s clear that he cannot emulate the applause and riches the people here gave him when he first arrived. The village is freezing almost year-round, not a day passing by without a cold breeze or hail pelting him in the face. The ground is often too slick to dance on, the air too cold to expose his fiddle to. With too little money and energy to go to a new village, Njord is a prisoner.

It has been two years since he has been truly warm.

His stomach growls.

After a few more moments of tossing and turning, Njord gets up from his mattress and reaches for his paper-thin coat, wrapping it around himself and leaving his house once more. The village is completely silent and every house is dark, the lamps off as everyone else slumbers, wrapped in warm quilts and hugging fluffy pillows. He pushes down a twinge of jealousy and continues tramping towards the forest.

He plucks what’s left of the blackthorn tree’s sloes and pops them into his mouth, the sour berries feeling like a feast to him. Njord clambers up higher and reaches for a sloe at the highest branch of the tree —

Only for the branch to break and send him tumbling to the ground.

For a while, Njord lies in the snow, letting cold water soak into his coat and turn his skin numb, tears once again tracing down his face. When he struggles to his feet, brushing snow off his coat, the ring of blewits, nestled behind the juniper tree, catches his attention.

He makes his way towards it, senseless from the snow. The moon shines bright and cheerful above him.

Tentatively, Njord looks at the fairy ring, rumoured to be able to take people to the fairy realm, and wonders if it’s any warmer on the other side. He takes a deep breath and steps inside.

Nothing happens.

Positively trembling with the prospect of finally leaving his village, Njord raises his arms and starts to dance.

It’s not easy, with his boots crunching in the snow and his clothes still wet from melted snow. But Njord dances with all the emotion he can muster, careful not to trample any of the mushrooms as he twirls, hopping to the other side of the small ring and spinning again. The forest blurs in his vision and the wind tosses his hair around. It is bliss.

There is no music, but Njord dances on, stepping around on tiptoes and gesturing to the moon, hoping for something, someone to sweep him away, to a place where he can be warm, fed and happy.

The last thing he sees before everything fades to black is the full moon smiling down upon him.

…

It’s warm.

When he awakens, he feels like he’s floating, cushioned by clouds and tended to by the warm summer breeze, something he has not felt in two years. His eyes open and he sees a ceiling, painted with creamy white marguerite daisies and swirling angrec, a mesmerising mural of white and gold. As he sits up, he looks around him. He appears to be in a bedroom, the walls painted with white forget-me-nots and the shelves and desks made with some pale-coloured wood.

He looks down. He is still in his worn clothing from the village, lying on a pristine white mattress that feels a million times softer than the one he used to have. He runs a hand over the surface and gasps. It is smooth, cool and light, unlike anything he’s ever touched before. 

“You seem surprised.”

The voice is coming from next to him. He jolts, whipping his head towards the speaker. There, on a profligate four-poster bed and lounging atop the beige blankets is a man — no, a fairy — dressed in a vermillion tunic, the golden filigree sewn at the hems glimmering from the sunlight shining in from open windows, breeches messily rumpled and what is presumably his coat tossed across the headboard. A crown, woven from roses so sweet-smelling that he can smell their perfume from his bed, rests atop an unfastidious halo of corn-silk hair. From his back, a pair of vibrant orange butterfly wings fan out. If the fairy were human, he ought to be the same age as him. He is the brightest, most colourful thing in the room.

“The mattress is made of cotton and stuffed with pigeon feathers,” he continues, “it’s nothing special.”

He neglects to tell the fairy that his mattress in the village was made by stitching together old sacks and stuffed with dead twigs and dried leaves. 

The fairy grins, showing pointed teeth, and slides easily off the bed, landing next to him. “Aren’t you going to run, human?”

He stares blankly at the fairy.

The fairy strides towards his desk across the room, rummaging for something in the drawers. “Aren’t you going to jump up and dash for the door?” He asks, voice melodic and resounding, “or, you know, beg for me to take you back?”

There is nothing for you to bring me back to, he nearly replies. “No,” he settles on saying, “I won’t try to escape.”

“Really?” The fairy pulls out something from the desk-drawer. “You’re unusual for a human, you know.” He makes his way back to the mattress. “What’s your name?”

To give a fairy one’s name is to give them ultimate control over oneself. “I have no name.”

But the fairy, perhaps royalty with his crown and therefore used to getting what he wishes, persists. “What did other people call you?”

For a moment, he feels as though he is back in the village again, lying alone and crying with the wind freezing him. “There was nobody to call me anything.”

“That’s a pity.” The fairy bends down to meet his eyes, knees pressing on the front of the mattress. “How about I give you a new name?” When he nods, the fairy declares, “you’ve barely reacted since waking up, except to that plain old mattress. Perhaps I shall name you Stellan.” He grins jauntily. “It means ‘calm’.”

A new name for a new life in a new world. Stellan nods again and decides to take a risk. “May I have your name?”

The fairy recoils a little, eyes wide. Stellan notices that his eyes are a bright, almost too-bright shade of cornflower blue. “Oh, of course you may not. But if you wish, you may call me Henrik.” He leans back again, saying, “you’re a fascinating human. I’ve never met one who looks so similar to a fairy.” Henrik surveys him. “Not the round ears or the lack of wings, of course, but…” His hand stops just a hair away from his cheek. “You have beautiful eyes.”

“T-Thank you?” Henrik’s hand is so close to his cheek that he can feel the heat radiating off of it.

Henrik’s palm brushes his cheek, fleeting and quick. “May I?”

His heart leaps inexplicably and Stellan nods. His eyes flutter closed as he feels a hand cup his cheek, thumb brushing tenderly at his cheekbones, moving to trace the outline of his eyelids and drag lazily along his jawline. Henrik’s touch is warm and caressing, almost like a summer breeze he has not felt for too long. Stellan finds himself leaning into the touch, having almost forgotten how it felt to have such lavish attention piled upon him.

“The rest of my kingdom may not take kindly to their King taking in a human.” Henrik opens up his other hand, revealing a delicate, transparent length of thread with dried red berries dangling down from it. Months of gathering from the woods tells Stellan those are rowan berries. He lowers his head as Henrik helps him put the necklace on. “Keep this on lest my jealous subjects try to enchant you.”

He feels the shrivelled berries rest against his collarbone. When another warm breeze blows in from a window by his mattress, Stellan feels the uncontrollable urge to run outside and feel the wind through his hair and the sun on his skin. “Can I go outside?”

Henrik gets up and extends a hand in invitation. “I’ll go with you.” Holding Stellan’s hand, he leads him towards the door. “I can’t afford to have such a pretty human get lost in my castle.”

…

Much like Henrik’s bedroom, the castle is painted in muted tones of pale yellow, beige and white. The nobles and servants flitting down the hallway are swathed in bright colours, wings glinting like ice in the sunlight. Stellan dodges a girl with swallowtail wings, stares at a butler with eye-spotted bushbrowns flapping at his back, gets knocked to the floor by a banded peacock-winged fairy zipping past.

Flowers, blooming in every shade of the rainbow, twine around the fairies’ wrists and ankles, wafting with their intoxicating, heady perfume. Only then does Stellan notice the red camellia, elegant and bold, on Henrik’s jacket and right over where his heart ought to be, nearly blending in with his extravagant cardinal jacket. Still in his village clothes, Stellan feels like a stone among jewels. 

“You were dancing in that fairy ring last night,” Henrik says, grip firm and steady, “so you might like this.” He walks up a winding staircase, running hands over cool marble railways and turns right along a corridor with laurel-carved walls. At the end of the corridor, he reaches a door and opens it.

Past the door is a studio, with floor-to-ceiling windows that let in sunlight turning crimson from the sunset. The wood is varnished and shiny, as though covered in a layer of ice. On one side of the room, an assortment of instruments are lined up — fiddles, lyres, wooden flutes. Part of Stellan longs to pick up the fiddle and coax beautiful music from the strings, or spin around on the glossy floor until he grows dizzy, but he stands still at the doorway even as Henrik picks up a fiddle.

“I saw you, dancing your heart out even with wet clothes and an empty stomach.” He begins tuning the fiddle with practiced excellency. “I want to see you dance again.”

Stellan watches Henrik play a few experimental chords. “You really do?”

Henrik nods, gesturing for him to walk onto the dance floor. “I’ve never seen a human dance like that. Now dance away.” He smiles. “I’ll play something as you do.”

Taking a deep breath he walks, bare feet cold against the floor. With one look at the slowly-descending sun, then at Henrik, face bathed in the warm sunlight, he spins.

Unlike his village, the air is warm and the sky bright, as he steps around the room (far larger than the fairy ring) on tiptoes, hopping like a skittish bird. From the corner, soft fiddle music plays, exquisite and lively. Stellan twirls and the windows, the instruments and Henrik blur past his vision in a psychedelic whirl. When he stops, striking a dramatic pose and staring at the ceiling, he is out of breath, heart pounding and feeling feather-light.

At the corner of the room, Henrik sets down the fiddle and approaches Stellan. “That was amazing. During the daytime, when you aren’t freezing to death, you’re even better.”

“Thank you.” Perhaps from outside the castle, crickets begin to chirp. “Now that night is falling, what are we going to do?”

Henrik glances out the window, where a cloak of navy has blanketed the fairy realm in its inky folds. “Well, I’m supposed to be going for dinner, all alone in my gloomy little dining room.” He starts walking towards the door again, beckoning for Stellan to follow. “But instead, we’ll go to the gardens for our meal.”

And they leave, Stellan trailing behind Henrik through labyrinthine corridors and painted doors, until Henrik leads them out of the castle.

The floor outside is carpeted with lush grass that tickles his feet as he looks around. Verdant bushes line the outside of the garden, juicy berries hanging from some of them. Patches of flowers grow around them, and right in front are towering trees. At the very center, a crystal fountain gurgles with water. 

Stellan looks around, wondering just why this collection of plants can emit such cloying scents. Henrik hovers up on his wings and picks an apple from a tree, holding it out to Stellan. “Have one.”

Once one eats fairy fruit, there is no returning to the human world. Stellan takes the apple, gazing at its smooth skin, and takes a bite.

The sweetness is so overwhelming that he nearly drops the apple, mouth filled with its crisp, saccharine flesh. Stellan bites into it again, memories of sour, barely-filling berries disappearing from his mind as he polishes off the rest of the apple, leaving only the core and feeling fuller than he has been in too long. Henrik takes the core from him and leads him towards another tree. Flapping his wings, Henrik soars up to the highest branch and plucks a large, juicy peach.

He doesn’t hesitate this time, biting into the peach and just stopping the syrupy juice from dribbling down his chin. When Stellan finishes, handing the pit to Henrik, he feels as though he is floating, drunk on fairy fruit. He shakes his head when Henrik offers him a blackberry, stomach already full. Instead, he approaches the fountain, listening to the tranquil bubbling of clear water that glitters just so in the moonlight.

“You can drink the water if you want.” Henrik cups a hand in the water and scoops up a handful of it. “During the daytime, lots of servants come to drink here, too.”

The water is warmed from a day under the sun, and when Stellan tips it into his mouth, he tastes honey, sweetened wine, syrup and nectar and sugary tea, a million things that should never taste good together but somehow do, combined in water enchanted by fairy glamour. For all he knows, the water could be muddy and filled with rotting plants, but still he drinks, gazing up at the star-studded sky and feeling giddy.

“Ah, I think that’s enough.” Henrik finishes off his own array of fruits and sends the pits away with a snap of his fingers. “Overeating the food here isn’t good, neither for fairy nor human.” He strides towards the door leading back to the castle. “Shall we go to bed?”

Back in Henrik’s bedroom, the mattress next to Henrik’s bed has been elevated slightly on a wooden frame, little butterflies carved into the short headboard. Stellan accepts a fluffy towel from Henrik and dips it into the basin of water set next to his bed, wiping his face clean and relishing in the cool water. At the corner of his vision, he notices Henrik changing into his nightclothes and looks down, wondering just when he can change out of his rags.

“I’ll ask the servants to get you some new clothes tomorrow,” Henrik says, as though he read his mind, “and a pair of new shoes, too.”

“Oh, er, thank you,” he replies, taken aback. 

Henrik only grins and flops down on his bed, yawning loudly. “I’m tired,” he announces, “let’s go to sleep. Goodnight, Stellan.”

Stellan crawls onto his bed and pulls the thin, velvety blanket over himself, laying his head down on the cloud-like pillow. “Goodnight.”

…

The next morning, gentle golden rays of sunlight rouse Stellan from a peaceful, dreamless sleep. For a moment, he thinks he is lying on his lumpy mattress back in the human realm, about to be snapped awake from his fantasy by harsh winds threatening to rip his window apart. But somewhere above him, he hears someone yawn and feels the soft blanket around him and curls back into his mattress with a sigh.

A breeze wafts in and stirs his hair, hitting him in the cheek with a stray leaf. Stellan peels it off with a groan, sitting up and feeling his blanket fall off from his shoulders. Henrik’s bedroom is just as extravagant as he remembered, the ceiling still elegantly carved and the wallpaper painted with blossoms. The mattress of Henrik’s grand four-poster bed creaks and he sits up as well, wings flapping languidly. “Mornin’,” he mumbles, “how did y’sleep?”

“Very well.” His jumps off his bed and stretches, basking in the sunlight streaming in from the perpetually-open window. “How about you?”

“Good.” Henrik reaches for the clothes neatly laid out at the end of his bed, pulling out a mass of azure fabric. “The servants got this for you.” He falls back onto his pillow.

The gown nearly slides out of Stellan’s hand when he catches it, not used to feeling such sleek fabric. It’s light, almost like spider-silk, and so soft it’s as though the softest flower petals were woven to create it. He slips it on and almost sighs at how the satin skirt pools around his legs like water. It fits perfectly. When Stellan reaches up to button the back of the gown, his hands brush over wooden buttons carved with fleur-de-lis.

When he has finished changing, Henrik flits over to Stellan, dressed in a rust-red shirt and still buckling russet breeches. “How do you like your new gown?”

Stellan looks down at his old clothes, sad and abandoned and looking even filthier and torn on the spotless floor. “It’s beautiful, Henrik. Thank you.”

Henrik laughs, sounding, perhaps, like the jabber of a sparrow in his mirth. “Those scraps from the other side were anything but fit for someone like you. Now I can see how lovely you really are.”

Flushing slightly at the kind comment, Stellan notices the pair of shoes laid down neatly by his bed. “Are these mine, too?”

“That’s right!” He grabs his own boots, varnished and beetle-black, and slides them on. “Tell me if they don’t fit, by the way. I almost forgot that you humans can’t fly instead of walk when your feet hurt.”

The leather of the delicate white slippers is soft and supple, fitting better than his old boots and feeling twice as strong. Cautiously, he walks towards the door. Nothing pinches his toes. It feels as though they were made just for him. “They’re perfect.”

“Let’s go, then.” Dainty-looking wings launching Henrik into the air, he flits towards the door as well, somehow managing to look elegant. “I’m sure you’d hate to miss breakfast.”

The dining hall of the castle is just as exquisite as the rest of it, both the tables and chairs engraved with butterflies and moths. Henrik takes his seat at the end of the table, the back of his seat painted with a bright orange monarch butterfly. Next to him, the second-largest seat has what appears to be a blue morpho butterfly painted onto the dark wood. Nobody takes it.

A servant pulls up a smaller chair for Stellan on Henrik’s other side. He runs his fingers over the carving of a brimstone, painted simply in beige and brown. Watching Henrik cheerily greet some of his attendants, he takes his seat and tries not to feel so dreadfully mundane.

As they eat, Stellan looks around the dining hall. Both attendants and nobles are radiant, swathed in flowers and vibrant wings fluttering in the sunlight. But at the very end, trailing some young maidens, a pair of children catch his eye. There are no flowers twining around their wrists and ankles, nor butterfly wings poking out from clothing. Like him, they are ordinary, regular, human.

“My court has always had a strange interest for humans,” Henrik says, noticing his fascination, “some think we’re strange and that we should spend our time making weird contracts with them, But I mean, why toy with humans when you could be their friend?”

Their friend. Strangely, the words send warmth spreading through Stellan’s chest. “Well then,” he replies, “I must be lucky to have shown up with you.”

Henrik pokes him playfully, passing him a chalice of water. “And I’m lucky to have met you.”

…

The days pass by quickly, as though Stellan is in a dream he knows he never has to awake from. The castle seems to be in an eternal summer, every day just as warm as the one before and the sun anointing the lands with its golden light before it sets and the moon rises to grace the night sky with its presence. The grass is always lush and the water cool, nothing barren nor dying. Every fruit, every berry, regardless of size, is a feast.

After another dinner in the castle gardens, he taps Henrik on the shoulder. “Henrik?”

He turns around, bright eyes questioning. “Hm?”

“Everything here will last for aeons, right?” Stellan gestures to the bushes and trees around them. “Even you.”

“Yep.”

“What about me? In the human realm, I’d be turning nineteen in four months, during May.” He pops a blueberry in his mouth, savouring the tart sweetness. “Would that be the same here?”

Henrik considers the question for a moment, taking another bite out of his apple. “It depends, really,” he says slowly, “on how long you’ll be staying here. If you were like any other human, you’d have only been here for maybe a week and you’d be back home before anything were to happen. You, on the other hand…” he makes the apple core vanish with a snap of his fingers. “You’ve been here for a month. If you stay the way you are, you will age, but far slower than a human in their world.”

Stellan tilts his head, watching as Henrik’s wings quiver in the breeze, weak but so strong at the same time. “‘If I stay the way I am’?” He repeats, “what do you mean?”

“If you stay human.” Henrik tosses his head back to look at the sky, one hand keeping his crown from falling off. “If I were to make you one of us, you would age like the rest of the fairy world. You’d live for thousands and thousands of years.”

Rather unusually, Stellan begins imagining himself as a fairy. With majestic wings launching into the air, flowers he can bend at his will and magic that he can use to achieve unfathomable things. Excitement, exhilarating and thrilling, rushes through his veins like a bolt of lightning. Thoroughly confused, he clamps the feeling down.

“Don’t worry, Stellan.” Henrik claps a hand on his shoulder. “You’ll have many more years with me before it’s your time.”

Somehow, the thought reassures him.

…

At first, the night passes like every other. Stellan bids Henrik goodnight, curls up in his soft, luxurious bed and drifts off to the world of sleep. But then he opens his eyes.

It is a dream.

He is still lying down, gazing up at the starry night sky. Strangely, the air is cold and above him, the wind shrieks. Dirt skitters down from somewhere and lands on his face.

Grimacing, Stellan raises a hand to wipe his face clean before realising that he cannot. His arms are firmly pinned to his sides, and when more dirt falls onto his face he realises that he is being buried.

He thrashes, mouth open in a scream that he cannot hear. Dirt, cold and wet, falls onto him, accumulating in their deluge until it weighs him down and he is immobilised. He screams again. Nothing comes out.

Henrik is the first person who comes to Stellan’s mind. He calls his name, imagines his face and his smile and his gentle hands, gasping for air as the dirt continues to fall. Nobody comes to his rescue, of course, for what immortal fairy would rescue a mere mortal? With what little energy he has left, Stellan cranes his neck to see who is sealing him in his grave.

A clump of dirt falls and blinds him, covering his mouth and nose and making him choke. Black fills his eyes and his vision ebbs as he frantically struggles for life.

Stellan’s eyes fly open and he sits up, soaked in sweat and heart in his throat. Next to him, Henrik stirs.

He looks around. The room is dark and not as extravagant as its daytime state, dulled by the night. Stellan’s vision adjusts and, almost instinctively, he looks over to Henrik. As though he has sensed his presence, he awakes and his wings flit, glowing a soft orange. “What’s it?” He slurs sleepily, “why’re ya awake?”

“I, er, just snapped awake.”

Henrik rolls out of bed, landing unceremoniously on his rear on the floor. “Yeah, right.” He climbs lazily onto Stellan’s bed and sits down next to him. “I heard ya. You were, uh, erm…” he stares off into the distance. “What’s th’word? Cryin’, I think. Or gaspin’, or something-or-other.”

For some strange reason, it is almost endearing to see Henrik bleary and half-awake, free from fancy words and royal responsibilities. Somehow the room grows even warmer when Henrik nudges him, the silken sleeve of his nightshirt brushing against Stellan’s bare arm. “C’mon, you can tell me. I want you t’sleep well.”

Thoughts of his nightmare fly back to him and he suddenly feels cold again. “ I had a dream,” he begins softly, “that I was being buried alive. I couldn’t move, nor speak, nor breathe. I thought - I thought I was going to die.” Growing light-headed again, Stellan doesn’t resist when Henrik pulls him closer and lets him rest his head against his shoulder. 

“You won’t die, Stell.” Henrik wraps an arm around him. “Not any time soon. I’d take on Death himself to keep you alive.” His left wing, as gentle as a leaf descending from its branch, beats steadily against Stellan’s side. “I promise.”

“You’d really go such lengths so I can live?”

“I promise,” Henrik says firmly, “and you should know that the fair folk never break their promises. Now — “ he squeezes his shoulders one last time before returning to his own bed — “I’m off to sleep again. Wake me up if something else happens. Goodnight.”

Heart fluttering as quickly as butterfly wings, Stellan watches as Henrik, kind, caring Henrik, disappears under his quilt and begins to snore. And, wondering just how his twisted, lonely heart made him fall in love with the fairy king, he sinks back down into his soft bed and drifts off to sleep.

…

As grand and beautiful the castle is, Stellan finds himself growing bored of it. The rolling hills beyond the castle grounds, the barely-visible roofs above the common folks draw him in, far more than the gilded windows and polished chandeliers of the fair court.

One lazy afternoon, Stellan interrupts Henrik while he is tuning his fiddle. “I want to go outside.”

He looks up, plucking idly at the fiddle’s strings. “You mean, outside the castle?”

“Yes.”

“All right, then.” Henrik stands up and sets his fiddle on the chair. He reaches for his coat. “Shall we go to the stables?”

Taken aback, Stellan very eloquently blurts out, “what?”

Henrik turns. “What is it?”

“I never thought you’d say yes, that’s all.” Stellan tugs at the skirt of his gown sheepishly. “Some say that the fairies will only keep their humans inside the castle.”

“Other fairies also make their humans dance until they can’t dance any more.” He laughs, ruffling Stellan’s hair. “But I’ve told you before, my court is different. We’re the oddballs of the realm because of that.” And with that said, Henrik buttons up his coat and marches out of his bedroom. “Now, let’s go!”

Stellan follows him through already-familiar hallways and down the staircase into the stables, eyes widening at enormous dragonflies with their iridescent wings and beady, jewel-like eyes. Henrik chooses a beautiful demoiselle, its shiny teal wings shimmering in the sunlight. Hopping onto its back as easily as one might a horse, he beckons for Stellan to follow suit.

He climbs onto the demoiselle’s stick-thin back behind Henrik, instinctively reaching up to hold on to his shoulders for support. “Won’t we fall off once he starts flying?”

“Of course not!” Henrik reaches back and moves Stellan’s hands so that they wind around his waist. “Just hold on tight.”

Before his position can sink in, the demoiselle takes off flying out of the stables.

As swift as a river, they dash out of the castle and deep into the fairy realm, trees and bushes blurring past Stellan’s vision. The rigid scales of the demoiselle dig into his legs as he holds on to Henrik for dear life. Just barely managing not to scream, he presses his cheek against Henrik’s back and feels the wind, cool and quick and free, soar past him.

When he sees bricks instead of trees and roofs instead of leaves, the demoiselle slows to a stop and hovers, bobbing up and down with its thin legs occasionally brushing the cobblestone paths. Henrik jumps off, hair a wind-tossed mess. “Oh, I nearly forgot how fun it is to ride a dragonfly!”

Head spinning and knees trembling, Stellan half-falls off the demoiselle and stumbles into Henrik’s waiting arms. “Why don’t you fairies just fly?”

“Not all of us are fast enough.” Releasing Stellan (internally, he protests the action), Henrik’s wings flap wildly. He sweeps his hand out grandly at the village. “But anyhow, welcome to Rosenmont!”

Rosenmont, with its stout little houses and narrow paths, is as charming as the castle. Henrik leads Stellan through winding paths, next to orchards overflowing with fairy fruit and past houses that overflow with music like siren-song and tinkling laughter. The few fairies he sees ignore him and Henrik completely, busy tending to their houseplants or magicking dust away from the doorways of their houses.

“Why aren’t any of the fairies greeting you?” Stellan remarks, as they pass a fairy with silvery-blue wings, “You’d think that if the king were to visit a village, everyone who lived there would be terribly excited.”

Henrik shrugs. “I’ve been coming to Rosenmont since I was a prince. Some fairies here have known me for hundreds of years. I’m nothing special to them.”

From a house, Stellan hears an explosion of laughter, and almost immediately afterwards a cloud floats to block out the sun. Golden light yields to ash-coloured shadows, and cool breezes, freezing in the eternal summer of the realm, send dust swirling up from the ground and goosebumps rising up on Stellan’s arms. Cursing himself for not borrowing one of Henrik’s cloaks, he rubs at his arms and, as the laughter inside the house only grows in volume, shudders.

And while he shivers, suddenly feeling so vulnerable under the loss of light and raucous laughter, the most peculiar sound emerges from another nearby house. Stellan recognises it immediately; it is the whimsical, jaunty playing of the fiddle. The melody is painfully nostalgic, sweet to the point of melancholic.

It reminds him of the other side.

Eerily observant, Henrik notices his frown. “Does this remind you of the human realm?”

Stellan nods.

“And you want to forget about it, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It must be because we’re on the ground.”

He turns to Henrik. “Huh?”

Henrik grins, gesturing to the sky. “How about this, Stell? I’ll take you up to the sky, where you can see things that can never, ever be seen where you came from. We can fly all over Rosenmont, and the winds will blow away every memory you had of the human world.”

For a moment, Stellan thinks that the sun’s clouding-over has blurred Henrik’s senses as well. “I can’t fly.”

“Of course you can! With magic, I can have you soaring over the land as though you have wings.” He points at the necklace of rowan berries around Stellan’s neck. “But first, you’ll have to take that off.”

He hesitates, one hand ready to untie the necklace’s knot. Taking off the rowan berries would leave him vulnerable to the magic and glamour of the fairy realm, could turn him into the enchanted, glossy-eyed humans that fairies are known for creating. But Stellan looks at Henrik, his vivid, manic eyes shining in invitation, and his excited smile, and takes the necklace off. 

The necklace disappears the moment it leaves his neck. Next to him, Henrik closes his eyes. He is silent, almost terrifyingly so. But when the breezes turn warm again, Stellan realises why.

His feet leave the ground and Stellan finds himself floating, higher and higher, until he drifts higher than the roofs. A few moments later, Henrik follows, flapping his wings and still murmuring under his breath. But when he reaches Stellan, he asks, “ready to fly?”

Apparently, his amazed expression is the only answer Henrik needs, for in a blink of an eye, Stellan begins to move forward. He shifts his position to resemble Henrik’s, relishing the wind tossing his hair around and the warm sunlight on his back. 

Then he looks down.

Rosenmont looks like a painting, idyllic and tranquil, trees miniscule blotches of green. He can barely see the fairies living there, all of them appearing as tiny as dolls. A distance away, the castle of the fair folk stands tall and majestic, silver turrets and polished buttresses gleaming in the sunlight.

Somewhere behind him, Stellan can hear the beat of Henrik’s butterfly wings, and all around him the lively whistle of the wind. He feels weightless, lost to the exhilaration of flying without really flying, and laughs out loud as Henrik has him dip lower and swoop over a tree, so low that his slippers brush over the leaves, before soaring up again.

They begin to fly back to Rosenmont, soaring over patches of trees again and propelling through clouds. All the while, Stellan cannot keep the laughter bubbling out his lips. 

But then, mere seconds from the village, somehow, he falls.

The ground grows larger before his eyes, trees blurring past him, the whistle of the wind turning into screams. Scared into silence, he stares, too horrified to move nor look at anything apart from the ground. Stellan curses his idiocy, curses his illogical, affection-addled decision to allow a fairy to enchant him. He misses the loop of rowan berries around his neck, keeping him safe from fairies he should’ve known not to trust.

He descends, down, down, down, falling faster than he can process and frozen as the chill of the wind shoots him toward his demise. Stellan’s eyes water, both from the wind and from the horror of being tricked.

The ground nears. Stellan closes his eyes and awaits death.

Strong, steady arms wrap around his waist when the ground feels but a hair away. His eyes flutter open.

Ascending again, Henrik leans down to whisper, “did you think I’d leave you to die?” His torso is pressed against Stellan’s back, warm and heavy and so, so reassuring. “I promised that I’d never do that.”

Finally catching his breath and basking in Henrik’s warmth, Stellan murmurs, “what happened?”

Rosenmont emerges in the distance. “I never was good at magic,” Henrik admits, “lost concentration for a moment, and apparently that was all it took to drop you. I’m sorry.” He tightens his grip and, quietly, adds, “you must’ve been so scared.”

His slippers land on rough-hewn cobblestones, and Stellan takes a while to regain his balance. He feels dizzy from his flight. Lightly, Henrik lands in front of him and places his hands on his shoulders. “How do you feel?”

“Better, now that I’m not plunging to my death.” He steps closer and stares up at Henrik. “I never thought you’d save me.”

“I told you, all those weeks ago, that I’d fight Death to keep you by my side.” Henrik leans down, so close that their noses touch and Stellan can see the freckles splashed across his face. “I don’t think I could handle losing you.”

Whatever he tries to say gets stuck in his throat. Stellan finds himself lost in Henrik’s eyes, the shade of the bright summer sky. For the third time since arriving at the fairy realm, he cannot speak.

“How about you?” Somehow, for Stellan didn’t think it possible, Henrik closes the already-narrow distance between the two of them. Their lips are almost touching — it is practically an invitation for a kiss. “If I were to leave, what would you do?”

A shudder, thrilling, riveting and perhaps even enchanting, ripples throughout Stellan. He clears his throat, but his voice is still hoarse with emotion when he speaks. “I don’t know,” he replies, “because wherever you go, I’ll follow along.”

Right after answering, like he is possessed by the spirit of someone lovelier, more romantic and far bolder, Stellan teeters up on his tiptoes and kisses him.

Henrik’s lips taste even sweeter, even more addicting than fairy fruit. They bring the scorching intensity of the summer sun, the balm of fountain water; they are softer and gentler than feathers. And though Stellan closes his eyes, stars explode before his vision as he sways, pure, untouched adoration igniting in the very depths of his heart.

Stellan opens his eyes. It seems that all but Henrik has disappeared from his view and there is nothing else he can focus on, except the touch of his lips. 

The sight of Henrik, after he pulls away, flustered and red-faced and devoid of his usual winning charisma is nearly amusing. Once again out of breath, Stellan tentatively reaches out to cup Henrik’s cheek, like Henrik did to him when they first met. Henrik seems to flush even deeper. “I — “ he stammers, “I, er, well.” He coughs. “Yes. Do — do you mean it? Do you, um, really, y’know, want to stay with me?”

It feels nice to be the one with charming words this time. “I meant every word.”

With a little gasp, Henrik grabs Stellan and cradles him to his chest, laughing joyously. Arms once again ‘round his waist, he spins them around and around, laughing still, and Stellan cannot help smiling along. It seems dream-like, fantastical — he has fallen in love with the fairy king, and the king loves him right back. 

When they both grow dizzy from their spinning, minds hazy with love and laughter, they stumble back to Rosenmont’s square, where the demoiselle awaits. Henrik barely manages to keep from tripping over his feet and mounts the demoiselle, and Stellan hops on behind him. 

They return to the castle just as the sun begins its descent over the horizon.

…

After another dinner of fairy fruit, after a bath spent in a crystal-clear pond, they return to Henrik’s chambers. The first thing Stellan notices is that only his bed has its sheets turned out, ready for him to sleep in. Henrik’s bed still has its sheets tightly tucked into the frame, untouched from that morning.

“Should I go get a servant?” He asks, gesturing at the bed.

“No need for that!” Having recovered his old allure after their brief kiss, Henrik flops on Stellan’s bed. “We can share.”

“Share?” Stellan repeats, “but the bed isn’t big enough.”

“We can stick closer together, then.” Henrik peeks slyly at him. “Unless you don’t want to — “

Before Henrik can say more, Stellan crawls into bed with him, nudging him towards the edge of the bed and yanking the blankets toward himself. Henrik yelps in indignation and tries to reclaim his half of the blankets. “Hey!”

Stellan pulls harder, unable to suppress a smile.

Henrik thrashes, half-laughing, half-growling, “wha — no — give me the blanket, I am your king!”

“I’m your lover!” Stellan counters. Apparently, that is enough to keep him from taking the blanket, and Henrik releases it. “I’ll get the blanket and you can sleep without it.”

He huffs when the blanket, once again, is tugged away, and Henrik wraps it around them both. “We need to share.” Henrik pulls Stellan flush against his chest. “Now, goodnight.”

The perpetual warmth that comes from Henrik is making Stellan drowsy, and he presses himself against his lover, already feeling his eyelids droop. “G’night.”

They curl up against each other, a sun-warmed fairy holding a shivering human. Sighing sleepily to himself and fitting perfectly in Henrik’s embrace, the warmth and nearly-dozing atmosphere of the room lulls Stellan to sleep.

…

The morning after that, and the mornings after, all seem to pass by in a daze. Stellan decides to count every day after it, for no reason in particular but to record every joyful memory he has of Henrik — that being all of them — so that he will never forget.

On their second day together, Henrik begins holding his hand boldly, unabashedly, in front of all his court, even daring to lace their fingers together when one of his advisors sneers at them. On their thirteenth, Stellan begins attending every royal meeting with Henrik, meeting the other courts of the fairy realm. On the twenty-ninth, right after a conference with what appears to be a particularly important fair court, Henrik takes Stellan’s hands and kisses him in front of both courts. 

The fortieth day sees an elaborate ball during a full moon, and as an enchanted orchestra plays at the corner of Henrik’s grand ballroom, they dance, awkward and inexperienced but happy all the same. Through a slow, lumbering waltz, a lively foxtrot and a dizzying rondo, hand-in-hand they remain. During the final dance, arms around each others’ waists, they bow to the courtiers’ applause.

On the sixty-eighth, Henrik worms his way into Stellan’s bed again, and they burst two pillows fighting each other before falling asleep, tired out from laughing and nestled in a mattress of scattered feathers.

The eighty-first day, Stellan watches as Henrik gets into an argument with one of his advisors. He slams his hands on the table as he seethes, blood-red camellias snaking from their perch on his wrist onto the table and threatening to choke the varnished wood. In shock and panic, Stellan yanks at one of the woody stems and nearly snaps it in half. Henrik pauses in his shouting and stares down at the bent stem, and sits down. He apologises for his brashness with a kiss to the forehead, along with a promise of, “I’ll control my temper.”

The advisor riles Henrik up again during a conference on the ninety-fifth day. Staying true to his promise, Henrik remains seated, the flowers under his bidding perfectly still. Stellan keeps one hand resting on Henrik’s wrist, the other wrapped around his waist. After the meeting, after the court has filed out, Stellan perches on Henrik’s lap and kisses him, saying, “you kept your promise.”

Hands on Stellan’s hips and lips smiling, Henrik replies, “I can never break them, my darling.”

…

Stellan counts one hundred days of consistent happiness before something changes. When he and Henrik retire to their chambers on the hundredth night, Stellan realises that his bed is gone. There is only the floor, polished and devoid of dust, where it used to be.

He nudges at Henrik, who has already begun to change into his nightclothes. “My bed’s gone.”

Henrik shrugs off his jacket and reaches for his nightshirt. “I know.”

“Will I have to sleep on the floor?”

“Of course not!” Henrik exclaims, horrified. “You won’t have to.”

Rolling his eyes a little, Stellan asks, “then, where will I sleep?”

“With me. In my bed.” He does not miss the little quaver in Henrik’s voice, uncertain and nervous. “Come to bed with me, if you wish.”

He has no doubts as he crawls into bed with his lover, sinking into the impossibly soft mattress and silken quilt. Stellan lies on his back, staring up at the beautifully-painted ceiling he is yet to get used to. The creak of the mattress signifies Henrik’s joining, and soon his grinning face crowds in Stellan’s vision, gradually learning down for a heated, breathtaking kiss.

One kiss turns into two, then four, then eight, before Stellan can no longer keep track of where nor how many times Henrik has pressed his lips over him. Petal-soft touches over every inch of him cause him to sigh; touches that he returns with shaking hands coax euphoric exclamations of beatitude from Henrik as well. Both of them are trembling, hesitant with the shyness of springtime lovers, lost in each other’s embrace. 

Timeless moments later, when they both are spent and sated, they collapse onto the mattress, delirious smiles stretching their kiss-bitten lips. Stellan rests his head on Henrik’s chest, made sleepy and placid by the pioneer of such a bold declaration of love. “You seemed nervous,” he slurs, “just now.”

“I was.” Henrik lolls his head back, allowing Stellan to tuck his head under his chin. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Not in your who-knows-how-many years of existence?”

“Not once.” Henrik smiles, his eyes blemished with just a glimpse of sadness. “But that can be a conversation for another day. Goodnight, my love.”

Choosing to ignore what appears to be a tear glistening at the corner of Henrik’s eye, Stellan kisses him once more, a swift peck on the cheek, and closes his eyes.

…

Like the one hundred days before their coupling, the one hundred days after it pass by in a blur for Stellan. That is, until one morning, when Henrik shakes him awake. A look outside the window shows that it is barely dawn. Stellan’s vision is blurry with sleepiness as he garbles, “why’re we awake?”

“It’s my birthday!” Henrik is strangely energetic, pulling on his jewelled clothes with uncanny speed and bobbing up and down. 

“Oh.” Stellan blinks down at the gown Henrik drops in his lap. “Happy birthday.” He rubs his eyes. “Can we go back to sleep?”

“Nope.” He pulls on his own jacket, reaching for his woven crown of thornless, undying roses. “We have to do something important.”

“At the crack of dawn?”

“Correct.” Henrik balances the crown delicately on his head, admiring his reflection in the mirror by his bed. “This is the only time we can do it.”

Grumbling under his breath, Stellan pulls on his gown and follows Henrik out of his chambers, the marble floor cold against his bare feet. A few servants bow to them in the corridors, but other than them, the castle is empty. Stellan recognises the path they take, and follows Henrik, arm looped with his, into the gardens.

The gardens are as beautiful as they were when Stellan first saw them, serene under the just-rising sun. Henrik kisses him on the forehead before rushing back into the castle, calling out, “I need to get something!”

Popping a few cloudberries in his mouth, Stellan perches on the edge of the enchanted fountain and watches the sunrise. His gown sparkles under the rising sun, and it’s then that he realises it is not made of just any ordinary fabric; Stellan looks closer, and notices the overlapping mint-beetle wings on his skirt, as iridescent and bright as an opal.

A few moments after that, Henrik returns, holding something in his hands. “Close your eyes.”

He does so, and feels something cool rest on his brow. Stellan opens his eyes and one hand raises to touch what’s on his head. It appears to be a garland of flowers, and his reflection in the fountain’s water shows that it is woven out of blue salvia flowers. “Is this a part of… whatever you want to do?” He asks.

Henrik nods, tugging Stellan up and squeezing his hand. “Maybe I should tell you what I plan on doing.” He takes a deep breath, and looks almost tense as he says, “I have been king of my court for hundreds of years, and the prince for even longer than that. All the while, I’ve befriended so many. I remember all the elves, goblins, merfolk, fair folk and humans I’ve been friends with.” He gazes right at Stellan, vision deadly serious. “I have loved none of them.”

Stellan takes a moment to process what he has said, before saying quietly, “until me?”

“Yes, until you.” Henrik smiles, and touches the crown on his head. “It’s rare for a fairy, especially a fairy king, to be lonely. People thought I’d marry, or at least fall in love, really soon.” He coughs. “I didn’t. I felt so… so alone. Even when holding revels or visiting the human world, I felt nothing.”

“Until me?” Stellan dares to ask again.

He nods. “When my attendants first took you to the castle, I thought you’d be the same, that you’d stay for an hour or so and have me take you home before it was too late.” Henrik blinks rapidly, rubbing at his eyes. “But no. You were the first, out of all those I’ve met, who I fell in love with. And I can’t imagine ever parting with you.”

“Neither can I.”

“I want to stay with you, for as long as I live,” Henrik breathes, “so I need to know if you feel the same.”

Just as he nods, Stellan remembers what he heard when he first arrived at the fairy realm. If I were to make you one of us, you would age like the rest of the fairy world. “Are you going to make me a fairy?” 

Tears slip down Henrik’s rosy cheeks. He hurriedly wipes them away. “Yes.” One quivering hand points to the salvia garland on his head. “That - That belonged to my mother, the fairy queen. If I change you, you’ll be ruling alongside me.”

“Go on, then.” Stellan bows his head, feeling the garland slip a little. “I’d like nothing more than to be with you forever.”

No sooner than after he’s said that, does he feel Henrik’s fingers tracing between his shoulder blades, sending tingles shooting through him. Whispers sound, in a language Stellan is yet to understand, sounding like the rustle of breezes through leaves, faster, faster, until the garden disappears and everything fades to black.

When Stellan opens his eyes, his vision is flooded with light. Something moves behind him.

He turns.

Lo, and there on his back, poking out through his gown, are a pair of wings, magnificent and glimmering. They flap, once, twice, lifting Stellan up from the ground, and he sees their colours, blue and brown and blue again as they flutter. They are the wings of the blue morpho butterfly, an exact replica of the ones carved into what is meant to be the fairy queen’s chair around the castle.

Blue hyacinth flowers twine around his forearms and ankles, one sprig going to rest over his heart. Right after that, Henrik flies up to meet him, taking his hands. The camellia over his heart is blooming brighter than ever.

“My love.” Henrik pulls him close and takes his hand. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Stellan jests, “you’ll have to look at this face forever.”

“Oh, of course.” He smiles, bringing their foreheads together. Their crowns, woven with the blossoms of crimson love against azure remembrance, bump against each other. “I could never get tired of it. So,” Henrik says, lacing their fingers together, “shall we have one kiss? You know, for our eternity?”

“Just one.” Stellan kisses him, just as sweetly and lovingly as their first. “For our eternity.”


End file.
